Congress of Idling Persons

2021. 36 min., 4K UHD video. English/Arabic with bilingual subtitles.

The film features five interlocutors who play themselves and greater fictions, in the shadows of recent world-historical events. Artist and writer Bassem Saad, DJ and translator Rayyan Abdel Khalek, musical artist Sandy Chamoun, writer Islam Khatib, and organiser Mekdes Yilma⁠ examine a cartography of protest, crisis, humanitarian and mutual aid, migrant labour, and Palestinian outsider status. Punctuated by the late Arab Spring, the Black Lives Matter revolts of 2020, and the Beirut port explosion, the film weaves through transhistorical constants — from rage and mourning to spontaneity and besiegement — propelled by the speech and acts of its performers. If a group action is a riot and not a revolution, then who films it? If four is a riot, it is also a congress.

Special Mention in New:Vision Award at CPH:DOX 2022
March 2022

Premiere at MoMA Doc Fortnight 2022
March 2022

Shortlisted for Sunset Kino Awards 2021 at Salzburger Kunstverein

Drafts screened at Transmediale 2021, Queer Cinema for Palestine at Sursock Museum, and elsewhere
Commissioned by Transmediale 2021, additional funding by Open City Documentary Film Festival 2020

 
 
 

Directed by Bassem Saad

Featuring and co-written with: Rayyan Abdel Khalek, Sandy Chamoun, Islam Khatib, Mekdes Yilma

Additional actors: Tsigereda Brihanu, Medhanit Teshome

Subtitles: Safa Hamzeh

Sound recordist: Lara Nassar

Sound designer: Anthony Sahyoun

Lighting: Eyad El Cheikh

Featured song: Dreams of the Imagination by Sandy Chamoun

Funded by: Transmediale x Martin Roth Initiative, Open City Documentary Film Festival

Thank you to: Ashkal Alwan, Egna Legna Besidet, Metro al-Madina, Lara Bitar, Hera Chan, Bassel Hasan, Yumna Marwan, Edwin Nasr, Joshua Wizman